Odisha Cabinet Approves Land Rights To Slum Dwellers In Five Municipal Corporation Areas
Bhubaneswar, Dec 31: Odisha cabinet on Friday decided to provide land rights to slum dwellers in all the five Municipal Corporations of the state.
The slum dwellers residing in Berhampur, Cuttack, Bhubaneswar, Rourkela and Sambalpur municipal corporations will be provided land under Jaga Mission.
After the cabinet meeting, State Housing and Urban Development Minister Pratap Jena told news persons here that about 1.90 lakh families in 938 slums in these five municipal corporation areas will be benefited under the scheme.
Jena said under the Odisha Land Rights to Slum Dwellers Act, 2017 and Jaga Mission, land were provided to people residing in 109 urban local bodies, municipality and NACs across the State.
The Odisha Land Rights to Slum Dwellers Act, 2017 was enacted with a view to assigning land rights to identified and eligible slum dwellers in all the Municipalities and NACs. Similar provisions were also incorporated in the Municipal Corporation Act, 2003 through an amendment in the year 2017 to confer property rights on the households living in the slums of the Municipal Corporations.
Odisha Chief Secretary S. C. Mohapatra said the amendment could not make significant progress due to various reasons depriving housing assistance under PMAY to nearly two lakh households. Realizing the difficulties in the implementation of conferring property rights on slum dwellers living in corporation areas and to ensure land tenure security, the government, Mohapatra said decided to provide Land rights to slum dwellers in Corporation areas on the lines of Municipalities. The government, he said, proposed to promulgate an ordinance for the purpose.
The promulgation of the proposed ordinance will not only ensure the security of tenure but will also make the households eligible for availing benefits under the housing scheme.
This would benefit approximately 2,40,000 households covering about 9,70,000 population in five Municipal corporation areas. Wherever it is possible to provide property rights, Municipal Corporations will grant property rights, but if it is not possible to grant such property rights, the corporations will have the flexibility of granting the land rights to the slum households in-situ over land up to an extent of 45 Sq.mt. If the slum households belong to the EWS category, land rights are proposed to be granted free of cost over an area of 30 Sq.mt. Incase if the slum household is in occupation of a patch of land, which is less than 30 square metres and vacant and the government land is available adjacent to the dwelling unit, it is proposed that land right shall be granted over land as nearly as 30 Sq.mt. by amalgamating the land available for the purpose.
